I haven’t spoken about this on here yet. Everyone outside of the internet knows, I think. I’ll come back someday and tell you all. Right now, thinking about it, I’m sad. Most of the time I’m good. What happened had to happen.

Until I can actually talk about that, I’ll leave you with this. I’m not sure that a human being can watch this without crying. Especially if you are a dog lover. I’ll tell you, when I was going through all the stuff with Lulu (well, after) this really helped me…let go? Get by? Because I gave her all I knew to give her. Was she properly socialized at a young age? Probably not. Should she have been in the country, on a farm, instead of a (very large) backyard in a town? Probably so. But I quit blaming myself a while back and quit letting other people make me feel awful.

Watch.

I sure do miss you.

Join the feast!

Appetizer
What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child? I really liked Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Tale Spin, Duck Tales…all those Disney afternoon ones. They came on our local Fox station, but I’m pretty sure it was marketed as a Disney afternoon thing. And at some point during the afternoon Double Dare would come on. Slimy. I loved it. On Sunday mornings we would get up at the crack of dawn to watch The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. “Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh Bear”…I’d watch that if it were on today. There is something very soothing about Pooh, kinda like Mister Rogers.

Soup
Pretend you are about to get a new pet. Which animal would you pick, and what would you name it? How about I tell you about the pet I just got 2 months ago, because she is exactly what I would pick. She is a Scoodle. Three-quarters Scottish Terrier and one-quarter Poodle. This makes for a very quick, cunning animal. She can read minds. Her name is Clarabel Dolores, because once again I felt the need to save a future daughter some ridicule. It’ll be bad enough when I spit on my thumb and wipe grape jelly from her face.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy getting all dressed up for a special occasion? Assuming that I start getting ready in time, and I’m not hopping out of the shower 20 minutes before I’m supposed to leave (like usual), then TEN because I love putting on makeup. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Like wearing pretty dresses, but not the awful underthings. Gah. I need to take a picture of the thing I wore under my dress for Heather’s rehearsal dinner. Medieval torture doesn’t hold a candle to this.

Main Course
What kind of music do you listen to while you drive? Things that I can turn up really loud and get kinda lost in. When I’m driving home, I have some specific music I like to listen to, because going home is something very, very special to me. The rest of the time I usually listen to some mix CD that I’ve made. This morning I made a new one with a variety of sounds: David Cook, Leona Lewis, Celine Dion, Allison Crowe, Little Texas, and Janet Jackson. Told ya. I’m eclectic.

Dessert
When was the last time you bought a clock? And in which room did you put it? I just recently bought an alarm clock. And then I bought another because I couldn’t trust the first one. You need to be able to trust your alarm clocks. It’s in my room, on my nightstand.

Clarabel, as precocious as she may be, is the best baby dog. (I prefer “baby dog” to “puppy.”)

• How To Housebreak A Puppy
  (tags: dogs training puppy)

Things were pretty crazy with school last week and this week has been really stressful, since my pretty little pup decided after almost two years of living here that she was going to start climbing the fence and running away. If anyone knows of ways to deter a Border Collie from doing this (outside of an electric fence, which is being installed today), please share.

Starting around $99.95, you can get a personalized photo dog bed made for your furry little family member. Someday, when Lulu lives in the house, I intend to get her one of these, covered with a collage of Kevin to guarantee that she will fawn over it all day. Check out VisionBedding.com for more info!

Strange title? If you knew my dog, I think you’d understand. Every time I hear that song I think of her. She’s a country dog, living in town. But she’s just about the biggest wimp in the world so I don’t feel too bad about having her in my huge backyard. She barks at the hoodlums down the street and keeps all the neighborhood cats away. I couldn’t ask for a better watchdog slightly distant, yet needy, obsessive-compulsive companion. Don’t let the lack of pictures of her around here and on my flickr be confused with a lack of affection toward the dog. She just happens to be camera shy (which doesn’t make any sort of sense with the rest of her personality). She is loved by one and all. She’s loud, obnoxious, and demanding, but at the end of the day, her most noticeable qualities are sweetness and those big, candlelight colored eyes of hers. You can’t say no to those things.

She’s just almost 2-years-old now (I know how old she was when I got her, and I used that to count back. We claim Valentine’s Day as her birthday, though I’m sure that’s off by a few days or even weeks) and her temperament is calming down quite a bit. There’s no more barking all the way through the night, no more dragging her pool around and scaring the little girl next door (well, I took the pool away), and as far as I know she hasn’t pooped near the house in a while. She is a very good, sweet girl. Doesn’t love yours truly as much as she used to, because from just about day one her heart belonged to Kevin (and I’d had her for over a year when she met him!). I will try to catch their interaction at some point. She melts into a little doggy puddle at the sight of him.

Yup, that’s my girl. Taken just a few days ago. And in case you haven’t been reading very long, her name is Tallulah Belle, but we just call her Lulu.

For Icy Hot and Vicks VapoRub. Both have helped me out a lot over the past week. And I’m glad to say that I’m almost better!

Right now I’m watching my silly dog corner a frog underneath a lawn chair. In other news it seems that her temperament has calmed somewhat. Let me tell you, that is a good thing.

This is Katie, our new cat. She lives with Mom and Dad so I don’t get to see her very often which is sad. She is adorable and one of the sweetest creatures I’ve known. Her interests include climbing pine trees and air-conditioning.